Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Metaphilosophical Considerations I

What's going on with people trying to figure out what's going on? Good question, and it could be asked in other ways, and varied answers in each case can be considered. I'll say here that, at bottom, it's just trying to discover the truth rather than believe what is shoved in front of you, even being willing to consider the possibility that your own mind and senses have the power to deceive you. You might think of it as an approach to investigative research that is as ancient as prehistory, as well-known as Descartes, but as personal as each individual's responsibility to reach his own conclusions. In essence, philosophy is the science of investigating such issues so as to attempt, in some schools of this science (or art, as it sometimes is), to reach toward a perfection of purity in this endeavor, which is the hoped for result of any investigation, which is to get to the actual truth of things. It's not to give answers, it is to try and figure out what the questions are, what other questions are possible, and whether or not they can even be answered.

If they are answered, it is an attempt to understand the answers, how it was reached, and what alternatives may have been possible. It is the art and science of sussing out what is real, what is true, and how to reconcile this with what seems to be, and in the end to try and determine how this relates to what ought to be. And THAT, the world of issues concerning what OUGHT to be, is an entirely new level of the subject. In essence, it is the ultimate of the trivia involving "Grammar", "Logic" and "Rhetoric": Facts/Percepts/Entities = Metaphysics ...... Ideas/Concepts/Understandings = Epistemology..... Urges-Impulses-Desires/Goals-Hopes-Standards/Methods-Actions-Consequences = Axiology (Ethics/Aesthetics/Politics). Every system of philosophy deals with these and other issues and finds their inherent aspects and their relations.

Out of this endeavor has arisen all the constructs and situations in our world, one way or another. Various methods of survival, social interaction, personal endeavor, and systems of approach to every facet of life and life-experiences have arisen, to include ways of thinking such as science, law, religion, and so on. They can be more or less effective, and more or less desirable, and perhaps more or less genuine as well. Let's say that many such systems or their application have been nothing short of evil. History could well attest to my saying that tyrannical systems of evil-doing have existed (and still do exist) which cause much hellish suffering. I might answer the question of "why" by saying that this is the consequence of Good Philosophy being sidelined for inferior, evil shams, and is a result of "Good Men Doing Nothing" and so evil takes over the default and all else must come to terms with that status quo. Overcoming such a false normality becomes the new imperative, but that becomes harder and harder for people to realize over time as corruption sets in and does its deep damage, in fact its "metadamage". Icke, and many others, and myself, have developed various approaches to this Science/Art, or Art/Science, which I call "Philosophy As Such".

Some people go much deeper into these things than others, and do so more prolifically or systematically, and are rightly called philosophers. Philosophers can be studied as a subject in our own right, and can be compared with one another, but only by some standard of examination which is itself a subject of philosophy, so most people won't find themselves doing that to a "philosophically deep or refined level". But everyone MUST do philosophy and MUST be more or less good at it, or more or less suck at it. That's life, no matter WHAT the shape of the earth. And while that subject is important, what is the shape of the earth, I think the more important issue is what shape the world is in.